What is a Marketing Plan Anyway?

Written by Charlie Cook

Continued from page 1

What are your marketing goals?

2. Define Your Marketing Strategy This is your overall approach and positioning relative to your goals and your competition. My marketing strategy is an educational one. It is based on giving people ideas and information they can use as a means of getting their attention and demonstrating value I provide.

What is your marketing strategy?

3. Set Up Your Marketing System Develop a plan of action. To increase s.ales, your marketing activities and media you use need to reflect your marketing strategy and work together as one.

I use articles and pay-per-click ads to get people to my web site, a free marketing guide to generate contacts, forms to generate leads, and follow up with autoresponders, my ezine and phone calls. Each individual activity supports and works in harmony with others to bring me a lot of business.

What is your marketing system?

4. Map Out Your Marketing Activities Now flesh out details. You've decided what your marketing activities will be; now for each marketing activity you’ll need to determine who will create and implement it and when.

Who will be responsible for developing, implementing and maintaining your marketing?

5. Sharpen Your Marketing Tools Each marketing activity involves using one or more marketing tools. These include everything from your web site to your phone scripts to your marketing messages. To cut through information clutter and get your prospect's attention you'll want finely honed tools.

Could you sharpen your marketing tools?

Plan your marketing like you would your dream home. The time you spend developing a marketing plan - your blueprints - based on your business goals, a clear strategy, and a coordinated system will pay off.

Use your marketing plan in conjunction with a set of sharp marketing tools. You'll be building your client base and profits in no time at all. -

Follow Up Letter for Past Customers - Why and How to Write It

Written by Ladan Lashkari

Continued from page 1

Writing a follow up email letter is not rocket science. Simply explain some of most important benefits of your product and then provide your customers with a link to your online sales letter to learn more.

All of us receive some promotional emails every now and then. Some of them are very powerful, while others are poorly written and boring.

If you save effective email messages that you receive on your computer, soon you'll have a collection of sample killer follow up messages to learn from. Read them carefully to discover their secrets to success, and then use that formula for your own follow up messages.